Thursday, August 12, 2010

Sautéed Kale & Mushrooms

Kale is one of my very favorite vegetables/greens. It's simple to prepare. You can use the leaves raw in fruit smoothies (make sure there is fruit or you will definitely taste the kale! lol) or salads. You can quickly sauté the greens and use them as a base for your meal instead of pasta or rice.

Elana calls it "McKale" and her boys eat these wonderful greens often in the summer. Meghan, Shauna, Amy, and many other food bloggers have been making "kale chips"... Lauren even found a company who makes kale chips and reviewed them for us.

Last week I had some leftover nitrate-free, organic bacon from Applegate Farms and we needed a fast meal for dinner. I also had tons of kale that I meant to use for smoothies... but I love sautéed greens so why not use them.

I came up with this simple & quick meal for dinner. The idea actually came from our recent series of 30 Days Gluten Free Quick & Easy Meals. Anna had made a bacon & egg baked chard dish and that looks so delicious, but I didn't want to turn on my oven. Since I had kale instead of swiss chard I just made a variation of her recipe. As Lauren of Celiac Teen put it so elegantly yesterday... it's time to play with our food. Don't be afraid to make changes, do your own thing, use the ingredients you have on hand. Have fun!

Simple Sautéed Kale & Mushroomsan easy side dish technique

3-4 cups kale, torn into bite size pieces

1-2 cups sliced baby bella mushrooms

1 small onion, finely diced

1-2 tablespoons olive oil -or- if you used bacon like we did, just use a little of the bacon grease... a little!

Directions:
In a heavy cast iron pan, or your favorite heavy skillet heat your oil until a drop of water will sizzle. Add the mushrooms & onions and sauté for several minutes until they are just slightly tender, but still have some "bite" to them. Add your kale and gently saute for about 3-4 minutes(5-10 minutes) until the kale is bright beautiful green. Serve immediately with your meal. I love using this as a base for our meals. It was excellent with eggs & bacon!

10 comments:

Such a timely post! I have some kale I picked up by accident from the Farmer's Market. I keep hearing it's a very bitter green and a lot of the recipes I'm seeing are for soups. Never thought about a smoothie. Love it!

Crys - I'm so glad this post is perfect timing for you! I really love kale! I wish I had some for lunch today! It's such a great base for meals, just gives a little something different if you're not up for bread, rice, or pasta! It's great! And yes, it's very good in fruit smoothies!

I love this recipe. I have made it twice now. We never buy real bacon, but use turkey bacon. I put one slice in the pot when I cook the onions and muchrooms and leave it in untill the Kale is cooked then remove it. It is just enough to give the recipe a light smokey flavor. I do love kale!